


We Danced Until the Night Turned

by LuciferClau



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Baby Gay Catra, Canon Compliant, Catra Appreciation Post, F/F, Happy ending~, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mentioned Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra), Protective Catra (She-Ra), Queen Glimmer's a wise queen, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting, angsty fluff, baby gay adora, children falling in love before they even know what love is, kids swearing because they're bad to the bone, tons of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuciferClau/pseuds/LuciferClau
Summary: What if Princess Prom wasn’t the first time Adora and Catra danced?Song Used in Work: "Until the Night Turns" by Lord Huron
Relationships: Adora & Catra & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	1. When the World Ending Comes

“Happy birthday, Adora!”

A cloud of sparkles accompanied Glimmer’s sunny-sounding greeting. Within seconds, Adora’s body was crunched together in the hydraulic press that was her friend’s arms. All she could hear was laughs bubbling from the short girl’s mouth.

“Thanks, Glimmer.” she croaked and pulled up the corners of her lips shakily. She was thankful Glimmer never noticed she was awake.

If she noticed, she would have wondered why Adora was awake with the blankets over her head, why she faced away from the door. She would have asked why Adora didn’t want to be greeted by her best friend on her birthday, and she was _not_ ready to have that conversation.

Adora forced her grin higher up her cheeks as Glimmer gripped the white spandex on her shoulders and moved her face from Adora’s chest so she made sharp eye contact.

“This is your first birthday in Bright Moon!” she shook the bewildered jock’s shoulders before she suddenly released her grip.

“You of all people need to get used to sleeping in,” Glimmer’s cape flicked as she sprung off Adora’s bed, “but today’s not the day, Adora!”

The blonde slapped her hands around her bed in search of her customary red jacket. She glued that same dumb grin on her face, commanded it to stay still for her friend, who hopped and spun and waved her hands like a hyperactive puppy.

After she swung the jacket through each of her arms, her world turned dark as she rubbed the sleep dust from her eyes. Glimmer’s hand swiped one of her own from her eyes, which left her one hand to continue her spring cleaning. Her chiding voice rambled about Bow waiting in the castle’s kitchen as her hand pulled Adora from her dark room and into the hallway stuffed bountifully with natural light.

As Glimmer blabbed about a ten-foot-tall mascarpone-cherry cake and an endless buffet table of delicacies from kingdoms as far as Salineas, Adora lost herself in the blurry vision that followed after she opened her eyes. She wanted to shuffle back into the dark of her room, for it was her friend: it wouldn’t judge her for crying on her birthday. It wouldn’t ask her prying questions because it already knew what was wrong, it already knew what was missing, and it knew what Adora needed was some fucking silence.

She wanted to forget She-Ra for a goddamned minute so she could take the time to hear little old Adora screaming bloody murder in her head. That is, if Adora was still in there. God knows what could’ve happened to her once Catra left her for dead in the First Ones Temple.

Adora had a single birthday party in the Horde. She never had what Glimmer and Bow organized for her—a cake, streamers, an awkward crowd of loved ones singing a song for her—but she had something else, something that she often replayed in her head, when she allowed herself to.

As Glimmer’s fiery excitement lit ablaze the spacious corridors of Bright Moon, her hand dragged a reluctant Adora to the professional chef kitchen.

She-Ra gave herself permission to spend some time with Adora; gave Adora permission to replay that ‘something else’ in her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally wrote this fic all in one go. I thought it was more fitting that I make it a short multi-chapter fic. But yeah, I wrote this during a nice 4-hour chunk of the time I should've/would've/could've been sleeping.
> 
> But I didn't want to sleep: Catradora said LET THERE BE FLUFF!
> 
> And so there was fluff. Or rather, there will be. Catch you at the next chapter!


	2. Don't Close Your Eyes

“Psst…” Adora felt fluffy hands trail down her small, bare arm.

“Ugh, Catra… What time is-”

“Could you pipe down? It’s the middle of the night!” Catra gave a high pitched rasp as her hand trailed up and down, up and down her arm at a snail’s pace. Adora was used to Catra waking her in the dark blue of night, but never like this.

“Could you explain why you’re waking me up at night?”

Granted, both of them were used to waking the other up, whether it was Adora’s grunts and pants during her sleep-fights or Catra’s soft sobs and hisses during her nightmares about Shadow Weaver.

A low grumble rose from Catra’s throat as she placed her furry hand on Adora’s lips. All the while, her fur kissed the blonde’s skin as individual hairs continued their path down to her elbow, up to her shoulder, and back again.

“I will,” Catra settled her agile feline figure at Adora’s bedside to ensure her hands grazed the girl’s mouth and skin with the slightest bit of pressure.

“But I won’t be able to if Shadow Weaver catches us before we get moving.”

Adora opened her eyes so all she saw was Catra’s monochromatic almonds calmly open and gently watching, focused on her. 

Adora never knew it, and it would take Catra years of hostility before joining the Rebellion to admit it, but there were nights Catra watched Adora sleep with that same watchful focus on her face.

Catra’s pupils were full ovals rather than the empty slits they became when she was scared or angry. Adora saw her reflection rising up towards her within the gluttonous black. She moved a hand to cover Catra’s as it traveled across its warm path, and it stopped.

“Good morning...” Catra’s hand moved from Adora’s mouth and back to her own grey shorts and red-and-grey tank top. While doing so, the hand took a second-long detour slightly downward so her pinky finger grazed Adora’s jawline, up to her chin, before it returned to her side. Adora let herself wonder if the straying hand was intentional, and her cheeks grew warm.

“... And, happy birthday.” Catra shifted on her thin, lean legs, and her tail jerked silently in the darkness, but her eyes were glued on Adora. She repositioned her hand so she held Adora’s firmly, before pulling her upward to join her in standing.

“Come on.” Catra tugged with a mix between a chuckle and a growl, her fangs twinkling in a side-grin. The human of the two children stood from her bed with her mouth just ajar. Adora bent down to put her shoes on.

Hand in hand, Catra led their way through the blinding overhead lights of the Fright Zone’s militaristic barracks. Adora hissed if she heard a night shift guard padding their way, and Catra yanked herself and the blonde towards a dark opening in a corridor, where they stayed until the footsteps faded.

Minutes passed while the two trekked on, before Adora broke the silence in worry that her furrowed brows would become permanent.

“Why did you wake me up like that?”

The softness of the gesture wasn’t foreign to her: Shadow Weaver would graze her cheek like that every day.

But the softness of Catra’s gestures were always foreign to her. They radiated a warmth that felt like an infection to Adora: the warmth hooked to her deepest nerve so that she began giving herself up to it, too. When Adora said ‘infection,’ she meant a good kind of infection—whatever the fuck that meant.

Adora grew up understanding everything outside the Fright Zone was the enemy. She grew up with the belief system that she could never relax, could never let her guard down, until she, Catra, and the entire Horde obliterated the enemy.

So yeah, Catra’s softness was an infection: it infiltrated her defenses, made her feel weak.

Adora didn’t care, though: she liked the weakness. She liked it, and she was going to allow herself to follow it every chance she got.

So she followed Catra through the blunt, hostile interior of the army battalion, with the heat from the feline’s hand keeping her flushed.

“I’ve decided that today’s your birthday.” Catra booped Adora on the forehead as she answered, before turning to the control panel for the Fright Zone’s exit.

Her cat ears flickered, her eyes squinted, her tongue peeked from the side of her mouth. All this as she dug through her memory for Shadow Weaver’s hand movements when she’d opened the door every morning. Adora blinked and opened her mouth, but instead turned her head round to check for any guards turning around the bend. She turned back as she heard the door snap open with a satisfied click of the tongue from Catra. Her tiger-striped arms bent, and her hands held her hips. Her back straightened as her flickering, fanged grin reflected the fire they were about to jump into.

Rather, the snow they were about to jump into. The girls stepped out into the powder-coated tundra. Catra pulled Adora closer with her tail, stretched her arm around the blonde’s shoulders, and rubbed her hand on her skin with vigor. The feline's eyes widened as she realized she hadn’t answered Adora’s question.

“You worry too much. I want you to have one day a year where you just think about yourself.”

The two girls walked in-sync so that Catra’s arm hugged Adora without slack.

“I want you to have one day where people are gentle with you not because you’re the ‘golden child,’ but because you just are.”

The feline and the human looked at each other. Their bodies were close, and so their heads were even closer. Catra’s pupils grew in size, and adult Catra’s thoughts broke through the memory her and Adora both shared:

_‘Elevated heart rate, dilated pupils,... Adora_ means _something to you.’_

Catra moved a claw, pushed a stray strand of snow-dusted hair behind Adora’s ear.

“So yeah, I didn’t pounce on you for once, what about it?” she redirected her gaze to the snowflakes that fell around them, her arm and chest still heavy against Adora’s shoulders.

Catra was usually forward with Adora: pouncing on her, holding her hand, crying on her shoulder, letting Adora cry on hers. But today was Adora’s birthday, she decided. She would stifle down her reservations and jealousy over Adora’s hold on Shadow Weaver for one day. She would do that for Adora. She loved her, although she wasn’t ready to admit that. Yet.

“I don’t know what to say.” Adora felt a pinch in her chest as her voice trailed off. It surprised her that she enjoyed it. It was painful, but a good painful. She would have slapped herself if it weren’t for today—tonight, rather—being her birthday. Infections could be good, she guessed.

“Smartass Adora, speechless... Can it be your birthday every day? I guess being soft isn’t all that bad, as long as it makes ‘Little Miss Perfect’s’ brain get zapped.”

“You know, given that it’s not actually my birthday, I could just turn back and let your thoughtful little plan go to waste…”

“You would not! I call bluff!” Catra bonked her forehead on Adora’s with a laugh, just hard enough to surprise the blonde.

“Would, too!” Adora jutted her neck forward so their noses touched, and they each felt their breaths on their mouths. The human darted her eyes in front of her as she heard music.

When Adora focused on the leaves, bushes, and voices surrounding the two girls, she realized they’d been walking through the Whispering Woods. She looked to the sky, and saw the dark navy had become a lighter cobalt blue.

“Catra, how long is this going to take, exactly? I don’t want you-”

“Today’s your birthday, Adora. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

“It matters to me!” she shoved Catra’s body away, and almost immediately regretted it as she crouched into her own body heat. The girls watched each other with small frowns and big beady eyes before the music caught their attention. Catra shimmied the accumulated snow from her hair before retreating into a hole inside a tree, bringing out a large red jacket with neat gashes collected at the sleeves.

“I snuck out a few nights back to figure out a plan for you, and I found this lying at the edge of the woods. I thought you’d like it.” Catra’s rasps turned into mutters as she helped Adora into the oversized garment.

“Glad to hear you didn’t _steal_ it. I’m actually impressed.” the blonde smirked, extended the last syllable with a low hum.

“What about you?”

Catra kicked the snow at her bare, fluffy feet.

“Didn’t find anything else.”

Adora glanced down at the sleeves that covered her bare arms, the leather that covered her torso that previously donned a simple white tee, the thick leggings that protected her legs-

“Get in here, hardass.” Adora pulled one end of the jacket to open her chest to Catra, to allow her space to join her inside the thick fabric. “There’s a little room.”

Catra’s gaze drifted to the direction the music was coming from. The feline closed her eyes. Her lion’s mane smoothed as purrs rolled through her neck, and down her body. Adora dropped the jacket back onto her torso as she watched her friend. She watched every little hair that shifted across her skin, watched as the tension below her eyes smoothed out easy like wrinkles on a shirt.

She’d never seen Catra so calm. She could achieve some modicum of calm with Adora, but this... This was new, and Adora liked it. Adora wanted this to stay.

The song consisted of ‘twang-twang-twang’ sounds and little ‘ting-ting-ting’ sounds. Adora never heard any music, and so could not name the source.

_I had a vision tonight that the world was ending_

_Yeah, the sky was falling and time was bending_

_I watched the heavens collide right before my eyes_

“Adora…” Catra opened her eyes. Her lips spread across her cheeks in a sweet closed-mouthed smile that worried Adora that she’d poisoned her best friend with that damned infection. The blonde reminded herself that the infection could be good, the infection could be good, the infection was good, the infection-

“I heard this music for the first time a week ago.” she walked to the girl cloaked in red, took her hands in hers. “I needed you to hear it.”

“They’re the enemy, but they have so much more fun than we do back… home.” Catra grimaced at the bile she tasted at calling that prison cell ‘home.’

“Sometimes I wonder what I’d be like if that box was sent somewhere else.” Adora forced herself to look at her friend’s face instead of letting the hurt weigh her down.

“Tell you what, though. You’re a sight for my sore scars. You make them stop bleeding without even trying.” she rubbed her thumbs along the insides of Adora’s wrists, stared down at them. Her pupils were those greedy, oval black holes again.

Adora moved her hands from Catra’s, held them on her best friend’s chest. She felt the indentation of the most recent result of Shadow Weaver’s outbursts beneath the grey of her shirt. Her hands opened her jacket again, now that Catra was closer. The feline looked up. Her dark seas connected with Adora’s shaking blues.

“Please.” Adora croaked, “Come here.”

“Hold on.” the corners of Catra’s lips shook upwards as she checked another hole in another tree—a few trees away from the previous one—before she emerged from the dark refuge with a white something in her hand.

“I made you this.” she shifted her weight on her legs, and her tail flicked, but Catra wanted to look at Adora. Her eyes became the sky, and Catra saw sun and clouds and warmth within the humble ring of blue.

“I never knew you could carve ice…” Adora breathed, trailed off, tears at the corners of her eyes as she turned the rose carved in ice in her hands.

“These things have use for more than fighting, you know,” the feline winked as she wiggled her claws before Adora. Before the blonde had the chance to speak, Catra pulled open Adora’s jacket and wiggled herself in.

“ _Now_ I’ll join you.” her voice cracked into a laugh. Adora’s followed suit. Their joined harmony blended into the ‘twang-twang-twangs’ and the ‘ting-ting-tings’ of the music from a close kingdom with a distant culture.

_What if the world dies with the sunrise?_

_Baby, it's all right—we'll be up all night_

_What if we're unmade when the stars fade?_

_Keep me going till the night turns into the day_

The ‘twangs’ soon turned to ‘TWANGS,’ and with the rise in the beat, Catra and Adora jumped and hopped with the music like awkward kids would do at family gatherings. Not that the feline and the human would know that, though.

Their giggles grew louder and tickled their tummies with giddy exhaustion. They held onto each other and spun to the ‘ting-TANGS’ and ‘twang-t-TATS’ that introduced themselves to the girls’ ears.

“I wanna try something!” Catra’s voice rose as she squealed inside the jacket. She escaped their little cave, and lowered the white collar. The feline shook the snow off the jacket before Adora wound her arms through the sleeves again.

Catra held out her hand.

Adora took it.

It was that simple back then, their hands just fit together.

“Trust me, okay?”

The infection pinched her again, and she leaned forward to kiss Catra’s forehead. Catra’s cheeks reddened, crinkles formed at the corners of her eyes, and she bared her fangs in a clear white moon of a grin.

The feline placed her hands on the girl’s waist, leaving the girl to move her hands to the feline’s frizzy mane. Catra’s lips squirmed into a frown as she worked with Adora’s body weight. She twisted her dance partner downward into a dip that left her looking at the other girl’s side profile. 

_I got a helluva view for the end of the world_

_I've got a bottle of booze and a beautiful girl_

_If I'm a-goin' to die, I'm gonna go in style_

Adora took one look at Catra’s cherry face, another at her averted eyes that found a particular bush eye-catching, and said:

“Smooth.”

“Shut up.” Catra moved Adora back onto her feet, and wondered why Adora let her.

“I tried.”

“I know,” she sang, sidled forward with her thumbs hooked into the brown belt attached to the jacket. “It was cute.”

Catra and Adora hugged for countless minutes as the ‘twangs’ and ‘tings’ evolved and grew with each new song that sailed into their ears.

It was Adora’s birthday, and Catra wouldn’t have it any other way.

Catra still would never consent to being called cute, though. Adora, she relented, was the only exception.

* * *

After the ten-foot-tall cake with gold attached to it and the performances and greetings and dry laughter, Adora found herself sat by her windowsill. She let her eyes follow the two moons rotating in sync across Etheria’s skyscape. She let herself wonder if Catra’s thoughts followed Adora, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you kids go. You got your fluff. More cavity-enducing sweetness is incoming.


	3. Watch for a Sign in the Midnight Sky

Follow her they did.

If they hadn’t followed Adora, Catra would never have saved Glimmer.

If they hadn’t followed Adora, Catra would never have gotten the chance to remind herself _and_ Adora of who she was beyond the scars she left on Etheria, on Glimmer’s family, on Adora herself.

It was Adora’s birthday, and Catra wouldn’t have it any other way.

The sky was a cobalt blue.

Normally, the lazy young woman would never skip out on extra pillow talk with her girlfriend— _shit,_ she still couldn’t believe Adora was her _girlfriend_ —but today was her birthday, Adora’s first birthday since they saved Etheria at the Heart together, and Catra’s plan required precise timing.

Catra grumbled and ran through the gallant halls of Bright Moon in her modified black-and-red tank top and black-and-maroon leggings. Her short hair ruffled with the bursts of air that came with her quick pace.

She bumped around the walls like a drunken Bow had done during the post-saving-Etheria bash, only he was slower and laughing as Glimmer lugged him to their room. Catra stopped, rubbed her eyes of sleep, and continued in a straight, coordinated line until she reached the runestone of Bright Moon.

Just inside the glowing mass, Catra had hidden a carefully carved and nicked rose from the clearest ice she could find. Or, maybe she just asked the kitchen staff to freeze her a jewelry-box-sized ice cube. Same shit. Besides, this ice reflected light so much better, which would work with-

Glimmer erupted into view in her trademark cloud of fairy dust. Catra liked to call it fairy dust, anyway.

“Speaking of the devil.”

“Morning, Horde Scum.”

“Hey, Sparkles.”

Ever since her and Glimmer talked about Queen Angella’s death, and ever since Catra pledged her allegiance as Commander of the Rebellion’s troops and as a member of the Best Friend Squad, conversations were a lot smoother between them. It was now a matter of time to wait, and wait, and wait for the weight that suffocated them both to slowly, slowly, slowly lift off their sore, fatigued shoulders.

They opted to treasure the peace they had with each other in favor of the bitterness that sat on a shelf called the past.

Catra moved so that the clear flower was in Glimmer’s view. The Queen’s eyes flickered with fire, and crinkles formed at the edges of her eyes as the warmth manifested itself in a smile.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. I... hope Adora remembers.” Queen Glimmer sauntered in a line to Catra’s downcast face, and held her gloved hands on her bare shoulders.

“She will.” Glimmer’s brows furrowed into a mountain as she fixed her eyes on Catra’s as they tilted upwards.

“It took her a long time to open up about that night.”

Catra’s insides cracked as she let out a long sigh, and Glimmer trailed her hands from the feline’s shoulders to her shaking hands.

“She’s going to love it, Catra. But not as much as she loves _you._ ”

The lean, scarred woman’s lips grew across her face naturally and comfortably as a tree would.

Glimmer prepared her permanence spell.

_‘I know who I am.’_

Glimmer prepared her color-staining spell.

_‘I’m going to take care of my scars better than anyone else could_ — _better than_ _even_ Adora _could_ _._ ’

Catra skittered back to Adora’s room after Glimmer enveloped her in a hug, after she let her fur sink into the Queen’s touch.

_‘Adora’s proud of me beyond words, less for what I did to save Etheria, and more for what I did to save myself.’_

As you can tell, Perfuma’s lessons on reframing internal dialogue were already helping Catra a bunch.

Catra knew Glimmer would kill her for it—she’d spent a whole hour the week before convincing her she _needed_ to do this just before the break of dawn—but she let Adora sleep in.

She let Adora sleep in: there was no Shadow Weaver to punish her for what she’d “made” Adora do, no timeline for their dance. She set her ruby-stained ice rose (more accurately named ‘glass,’ now that Glimmer had put a permanence spell on it) on Adora’s nightstand.

She shifted to Adora’s ‘SPT’—‘Strategic Planning Table’ (ridiculous, I know)—and scrawled a quick note that she would place beside the rose:

“I want to try something.”

Catra sat on the balcony’s railing and gazed down at the entirety of Bright Moon’s kingdom. She sensed something beside her, turned to look.

Little Catra smiled up at her, yanked at the little tear in her red-and-grey shirt’s neckline. She tousled her fluffy, wild streaks. She felt the trees blossom forth across her cheeks in a wide, close-mouthed smile; she breathed in the freshness of the feeling.

_‘Just because your head goes wild doesn’t mean you’re worthless, okay?’_

Little Catra rested her head on Adult Catra’s side.

Catra put her arm around that little girl just like she’d done to Adora back in the woods.

She still felt cold, but she wasn't alone anymore. Warmth would come and go.

But Catra was never going to abandon herself again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta say, writing this til 5 am was quite the cathartic experience. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> I feel like Adora and Catra's childhood dynamic was sweet and innocent. Adora always knew Catra cared about her. Deeply. Little moments of unguarded intimacy from their past helped Adora see her best friend behind all the hurt, abuse, and grief. Catra always knew Adora's weakest points. She was always able to bring Adora back down to Earth when Shadow Weaver kept pressuring her to reach for the Universe. It explains how Catra always knew how to play Adora's heartstrings at the beginning of the show.
> 
> My theory? Throughout their childhood, Shadow Weaver saw Catra trying to remind Adora that her happiness mattered more than her rank or power.
> 
> We all know how Shadow Weaver felt about that statement.
> 
> So, the abusive figure did what she did best: she drilled it into Catra's head that her kindness distracted the person she loved from achieving her greatest potential.
> 
> She drilled it into Catra's head that her kindness—an intrinsic part of Catra's personality—made her worthless.
> 
> Thus, the rift was created.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this fic all in one go. I thought it was more fitting that I make it a short multi-chapter fic. But yeah, I wrote this during a nice 4-hour chunk of the time I should've/would've/could've been sleeping.
> 
> But I didn't want to sleep: Catradora said LET THERE BE FLUFF!
> 
> And so there was fluff. Or rather, there will be. Catch you at the next chapter!


End file.
